Lupicus using grub skill on necro minions

Hey folks, I can’t seem to find the thread, but there was one that asked about necro reanimator trait, and lupicus using his grub skill on them. This behavior effected Necro minions, Mesmer clones, Ranger pets, and even the follower NPC.
I’ve now modified the skill so that it will only target players from now on as a priority before looking at minions/pets/turrets/NPCs.

I’d like to ask that if anyone finds a monster/boss whose mechanics unfairly target pets and minions, to please post about it here in this thread, and I will try to look into them to see what can be done.

EDIT:
This work has not been patched into the game yet.

MORE EDITS:
Jade Maw: I’m leaving the beam as it is for the moment on the jade maw. There’s arguments for both sides, but there is also intentional gameplay in using pets/turrets/minions that I’d rather rather not nuke, that I think is actually pretty clever.

Subject Alpha: His ice attack AOE will primarily target players, and NPCs shouldn’t get the rings either, which means you shouldn’t see the ice attack even happen on clones/pets/minions/npc.

Fractal Jelly: Now will only try to eat players if they are around.

CoE Bjarrl the Rampager: Rush attack will now only target players.

Arrah Dwayna Sparks: Will try to attack the closest player. They might default from time to time to attacking pets, but the behavior should be greatly tightened up.

Thanks, Rob! Now I won’t feel so bad bringing my Necromancer out against GL!

If you want something else to look at in this regard, check out Subject Alpha. I’ve noticed that a couple of his skills seem to spawn excess red rings of AOE death for each summon around, unfairly restricting those builds against him when he uses them. It’s tough to verify for sure, though, because he spawns a ton of those rings, but so long as you look into it and check one way or the other will be good enough. Thanks again!

Jade Maw targetting pets with his laser merely prolongs the fight, doesn’t give a disadvantage to the team the same way Lupicus does. Subject Alpha targetting with his crystal is entirely beneficial to the team though.

These two things aren’t inbalanced in the mobs favor, they’re in the players favor, and personally think they are fine.

Edit: Never really noticed Alpha adding more attack circles depending on the number of clones/pets you have, then again, I rarely see necros in that dungeon.

Thanks, Rob! Now I won’t feel so bad bringing my Necromancer out against GL!

If you want something else to look at in this regard, check out Subject Alpha. I’ve noticed that a couple of his skills seem to spawn excess red rings of AOE death for each summon around, unfairly restricting those builds against him when he uses them. It’s tough to verify for sure, though, because he spawns a ton of those rings, but so long as you look into it and check one way or the other will be good enough. Thanks again!

The ring that SA spawns is on everyone, including the NPC, and all pets.

Ran it once with a Mesmer, Ranger and Necromancer. As a melee Guardian, I was lucky to not die.

Jade Maw targetting pets with his laser merely prolongs the fight, doesn’t give a disadvantage to the team the same way Lupicus does. Subject Alpha targetting with his crystal is entirely beneficial to the team though.

These two things aren’t inbalanced in the mobs favor, they’re in the players favor, and personally think they are fine.

I’m gonna second that you don’t change this, I purposefully drop Supply Crate on higher level fractals when he downs my friends with the party-wide spectral agony (so I can more likely be safe while I rez up my friends). When I see that skull over a turret, I strike a ;D face.

Subject Alpha : targetting pets/clones/minions etc …with AOE (which makes a bit more “difficult” but not so much) and also targets them with crystal (which makes it easier, don’t know if intended or not)

Anyway, relevant, I had a similar but still quite seperate problem with Lupi last night: We were trying the stack method to get through phase 1, and he would spontaneously heal. We theorized that it was because of the thief getting knocked down, his minor trait deployed a “smoke bomb” on knockdown which stealthed the whole group (because we were stacked), meaning lupi had no targets and reset, but we never got to test this theorem because everyone rage quit. Obviously workaround-able (not using the stack method, leaving the thief behind) but still, I don’t see why we should have to avoid using the best strategy for P1 just because of a minor trait which he can’t turn off.

At Simin Priest of Dwayna you can’t do nothing as a Ranger cause your PET keeps aggroing this kitten sparks and then they don’t fit around the statue.
There nothing, nothing, more frustrating in this game than trying to fight Dwayna with a Ranger.
I don’t think ranger’s pet need an aggro fix, I think you have to let us rangers hide our pet if we want to and let him spawn again when we desire. Now we are forced to always keep the pet with us if we are in combat. Let us fight and move alone if we want.

While you’re looking into NPCs in dungeons can you also consider investigating some of their other intrusive behaviours? Like pulling groups players didn’t intend to, crowding melee when mobs have bouncing attacks, not letting bosses reset when the rest of the team have backed out of an encounter, stopping your combat and movement/dodge because you accidentally clicked on them and started a conversation, being a target for AoE abilities at all while they stand in the group, etc. etc.

Jade Maw targetting pets with his laser merely prolongs the fight, doesn’t give a disadvantage to the team the same way Lupicus does.

In fact, it can give an advantage. I have purposefully spawned or shattered clones depending on the fight. If some people had low AR and are dead, I make clones to up the odds of avoiding us until we get everyone up. Personally I like the mechanic.

Thanks for fixing this Robert Now I won’t have to alt-tab auto-attack lupicus in phase 1 anymore because I can’t spawn any of my clones. As for the original that I think you are talking about it’s here:

I think the biggest issue mesmers have with clones is that so many bosses do AOE effects that they are destroyed very quickly making phantasm builds pretty ineffective in dungeons though I don’t see how you could fix this other than making it so AOE heavy bosses do less damage to clones specifically (Though I don’t run a phantasm build myself I can’t imagine Subject Alpha being fun with one of these builds).

Also I’d love to know why my ‘Clone when Dodge’ clone LOVES the seal at the end boss in the cliffside fractal? Any time I create a clone when dodging it always runs off to the seal continously knocking itself down against the protective bubble (which is rather amusing if ineffective).

I know this is probably unrelated to dungeons and more a mesmer issue as I’ve seen it happen before but my clones seem to REALLY love these seals no matter if I have the boss targeted where as normally it seems to fix itself as I hit my target more.

This isn’t mob related, but could you consider making skills that affect allies (shouts, heals, etc) target your party first? It kind of sucks being at a world boss trying to toss a heal on my dying party member and having all of the other people around get the effect instead. ;x

Since players rezistances don’t count fot pets, then it’s unfair as well. Specially on higher lvl fractals pets are like 1 hited by agony even players having 30 rezistances. There is no chance to keep pets alive.

But after all, every time my pet gets agro it’s unfair, cause it can’t protect itself (dodge roll, flank, make 2 steps to a side to avoid the aoe). Specially in any boss fight it’s unfair cause pets are like 1-hited. Sure I can call it off, but then the pet is useless.

1)Subject Alpha.
2)The pirate mesmer in Path 2 of Arah and her 1 shot orbs. They will hit a clone or pet and ricochet to anyone near them.
3)The elementals at Sinin path 4 arah
4) Every tree endboss in TA

Since players rezistances don’t count fot pets, then it’s unfair as well. Specially on higher lvl fractals pets are like 1 hited by agony even players having 30 rezistances. There is no chance to keep pets alive.

But after all, every time my pet gets agro it’s unfair, cause it can’t protect itself (dodge roll, flank, make 2 steps to a side to avoid the aoe). Specially in any boss fight it’s unfair cause pets are like 1-hited. Sure I can call it off, but then the pet is useless.

Yep, pets are quite dreadful. They are at best useless and at worst a liability and a hindrance.

Hey folks, I can’t seem to find the thread, but there was one that asked about necro reanimator trait, and lupicus using his grub skill on them. This behavior effected Necro minions, Mesmer clones, Ranger pets, and even the follower NPC.
I’ve now modified the skill so that it will only target players from now on as a priority before looking at minions/pets/turrets/NPCs.

I’d like to ask that if anyone finds a monster/boss whose mechanics unfairly target pets and minions, to please post about it here in this thread, and I will try to look into them to see what can be done.

EDIT:
This work has not been patched into the game yet.

I have to say Rob that you are the single most useful dev poster on these forums, every time you post it is with great news or if not, we can feel like you are really doing your best to fix things. Rarely have I seen one of the copy-paste responses from you if at all. You really do go above and beyond for players such as bringing up a thread like this so THANK YOU from everyone, oh and that little edit is so useful that it stops another 6 pages of the same question or whinging that it is not working so kudos for the foresight.

Please reconsider Jade Maw! Speaking from a Ranger’s perspective, I do not want my pet being targetted by his eye laser. I cannot stow my pet while in combat, so my options are to either stand on the sidelines, out of combat being useless while everyone else is killing the tentacles/colossi just, or to stand in combat, with the pet merely delaying and dragging the fight on by being targetted. Having the pet one-shotted by an unavoidable eye beam just compounds onto the already poor survivability of ranger pets with most hard hitting attacks such as Agony just wrecking them (for some reason, the pet window displays Agony Resist but it’s impossible for them to inherit any)

If you will not change his targetting mechanics, can you at least consider the fact that it targets pets which are already downed, Rob?

Did you also look into the fire spell rings on Alpha, or just the ice spell rings? If the fire spell rings are also in-line, good on ya’. Just trying to make sure that it’s all working as intended. Thanks for your diligence!

Another one: Ice elemental or Dredge Mining Suit boss in dredge fractal. It is preferred that no member use any kind of pet on this fight because the boss will target the pet and screw up the kiting for this boss. This just makes the fight go that much slower, and mesmers pretty much stuck using no illusion-generating attacks unless they immediately shatter afterwards.

In higher level fractals, players using pets get yelled at by party members.

I second two posts above :
1) Targetting of pets/clones …. on dredge final boss
2) Targetting of pets/clones …. by Jade

As a mesmer, I would like to see both got ridden of, especially for Jade. I’m quite bored of being blamed “omg Kratos don’t use clones noob it’s getting longer” “omg don’t spawn clones, boss will chase them”.
I have even already been threatened to be kicked at Jade because I was using clones …
But seriously, clones are at the heart of mesmer’s mechanics. Is it intended that we cannot do anything but spam 1 on such encounters ?

I second two posts above :
1) Targetting of pets/clones …. on dredge final boss
2) Targetting of pets/clones …. by Jade

As a mesmer, I would like to see both got ridden of, especially for Jade. I’m quite bored of being blamed “omg Kratos don’t use clones noob it’s getting longer” “omg don’t spawn clones, boss will chase them”.
I have even already been threatened to be kicked at Jade because I was using clones …
But seriously, clones are at the heart of mesmer’s mechanics. Is it intended that we cannot do anything but spam 1 on such encounters ?

In relation to the Maw, your groups don’t sound that friendly. I relish Mesmers and Rangers in our guild group, because quite simply, it’s less of a hassle overall when going to take out tentacles and bring back crystals. I don’t have to worry about being targeted while out on my own as much.

I agree with the Dredge boss, though. Withdrawn aggro can kill the flow of that fight.

Fractal Jellyfish : eats ranger pets which do not struggle so it stays in the “eating” phase a looong time taking barely no damage.

I meant to report this ages ago. Thanks for bringing this up.

What we discovered was that you really had to watch your pet and basically swap pets to force the pet to stop being eaten, the equivalent of struggling free. Of course if your pet swap functionality was on CD you were out of luck.

It would be great if pets were not targeted by this attack simply because they won’t auto-struggle. And if they did, it’s too “easy” on the party.

As for Simin/Path 4 Arah…
Yes please do whatever you can for the sparks not to glom on to Ranger Pets, Necro pets, or the NPC. It’s to the point now that I can’t get a response from people in pugs for that path on my ranger, and with guildies I get asked to bring my less geared mesmer instead because of the pet issue.

Also with mesmer clones, it’s nice to have my usual trait up for dodging to create a clone but in this fight it’s impossible. Dodge out of AOE on the way to get to position for a spark and … the clone is still there when you come back with a spark. Not good.

Can’t tell you how many times we’ve forced the NPC in Arah to die just to get rid of him for a boss fight. It’s just horrid, and people get SO angry if he gets rez’d either for Lupi or Dwayan or whoever. And if he is dead, you run too far away from the boss and back he pops up alive. Or someone in the party drops on top of the NPC and you rez the NPC by mistake, and suddenly you can’t get sparks in because of him. Just an absolute nightmare.

Also I noticed you mentioned these weren’t live. I hope they do get mentioned in patch notes when they go live, I know some people are to the point they won’t go near path 4 until there are changes of some kind or another. Would be good to know when I can start begging again.

Can’t tell you how many times we’ve forced the NPC in Arah to die just to get rid of him for a boss fight. It’s just horrid, and people get SO angry if he gets rez’d either for Lupi or Dwayan or whoever. And if he is dead, you run too far away from the boss and back he pops up alive. Or someone in the party drops on top of the NPC and you rez the NPC by mistake, and suddenly you can’t get sparks in because of him. Just an absolute nightmare.

Until anet fixes it, if you wipe at lupi while Randall was dead, and all of you choose to respawn, he’ll respawn as well. But if one of you remains dead and wait for rez when everyone else comes back, he’ll stay rez.

Quite recently I used my minions in the Jade Maw fight to give us the best chance of avoiding a wipe. Two of our group had either disconnected or quit on earlier fractals so we didn’t have the DPS to take down the tentacles as quickly to ensure a steady supply of crystals. Since at that portion of the fight, the laser comes much more frequently, I summoned up as many minions as I could while trying to rez allies after they were downed (typically due to a tentacle knocking them down right before laser).

Yeah, definitely do not remove this option. I can see it being fixed so it does not target downed ranger pets (as rangers have no choice but to have them), but do not remove the ability for it to target other things.

Until anet fixes it, if you wipe at lupi while Randall was dead, and all of you choose to respawn, he’ll respawn as well. But if one of you remains dead and wait for rez when everyone else comes back, he’ll stay rez.

Learned this “behavior” the hard way. Not what I expected. I am by no means inexperienced, just … with the idiosyncracies of the way it works in GW2. Which is to say, no, I haven’t lived in dungeons to learn all the workarounds. I do them, I do them quickly and get out. I guess I’ve been lucky.

But thank you for confirming this suspicion; last time it happened I was indeed to the point ‘just leave me dead guys, and rez me when you get in here.’

Quite recently I used my minions in the Jade Maw fight to give us the best chance of avoiding a wipe. Two of our group had either disconnected or quit on earlier fractals so we didn’t have the DPS to take down the tentacles as quickly to ensure a steady supply of crystals. Since at that portion of the fight, the laser comes much more frequently, I summoned up as many minions as I could while trying to rez allies after they were downed (typically due to a tentacle knocking them down right before laser).

Yeah, definitely do not remove this option. I can see it being fixed so it does not target downed ranger pets (as rangers have no choice but to have them), but do not remove the ability for it to target other things.

I cannot understand this, what’s the point in playing time like that ?
First, it’s random, does not assure you to give time and second, you have other ways to save time :
1) just dodge the attack (pretty easy when you learned the timing, always possible unless you are very bad)
2) use invulnerable CD (easiest, but not always up)
3) just pick up a crystal if there’s any, get hit, but do not throw it : you can absorb as many attacks as you want.

Provided those 3 reasons, I fail to see why it should still target pets/minions/clones …
Don’t forget that those bugs are crippling for rangers, necros and mesmers, who cannot play properly …